Special Education Division
- December Special Education Directors' Forum
- Troops to Teachers
- School-Based Diversion Pilot Grants - due December 1, 2017
- Microgrants for Transitioning Students
- Parent Survey
- Care and Treatment Survey
- Documentation Required for Health-Related Services
- Visual Communication and Sign Language Checklist
- IEPs for Learners who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing
- State Rehabilitation Council for the Blind Opportunities
State Board of School Administrators: Kinkel Named Executive Director
Compliance and Assistance Division: New Special Education Compliance Training
Special Education Division News
Director: Robyn Widley
December Special Education Directors' Forum
The final Special Education Directors' Forum of the year will be held Friday, December 8, 2017, beginning at 9 a.m. in Rooms 15 and 16, Conference Center B, Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), 1500 Highway 36 W., Roseville, Minnesota 55113. The December Forum features a 60th anniversary celebration of Minnesota's special education law along with updates on compliance, finance, federal reporting, person-centered planning and significant disproportionality. The forum will be available for remote viewing courtesy of MediaSite. Watch the Special Education Directors' listserv for more information. We look forward to seeing you in December.
Contact Tom Delaney for more information.
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Troops to Teachers is Proud to Serve Again
Looking
for highly qualified Special Education teachers? The Department of Defense-sponsored Troops to Teachers (TTT) program is here to serve you and the people
of Minnesota. The program recruits K-12
teachers of all types from the U.S. military and veteran populations, guides
them through teacher training and certification and provides job placement
assistance. Incentives are provided for teaching in high needs and rural schools.
For more information, contact Dr. Charles Rick, Minnesota TTT representative, at 218-780-0343 or the TTT region office at 406-994-4173.
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Grantees Sought for School-Based Diversion Pilot
DHS is requesting proposals from qualified grantees to pilot the Minnesota Model of school-based
diversion for students with co-occurring disorders.
The
model is designed to support students who have been or are at risk for being
ticketed or arrested by school resource officers. It is a method to review
school incidents and divert youth with co-occurring disorders to mental and
chemical health services in order to treat underlying causes of disruptive behavior.
View the request
for proposals on the DHS website. Up to six grantees may be awarded
$19,500 from December 22, 2017, until June 30, 2018, with the option for
one-year extensions. Proposals are due by December 1, 2017.
For more information, contact Thomas
Delaney (Supervisor, Interagency Partnerships) at 651-582-8324.
Microgrants Available for Transitioning Students
The Arc Minnesota has notified us that they are administering a DHS-funded program providing microgrants to help Minnesota residents 18 and older with disabilities overcome barriers to postsecondary transition. The Minnesota Microgrant Partnership offers small amounts of money to persons with disabilities to achieve their competitive employment, inclusive housing and community integration goals. We would appreciate your informing staff who work with transitioning students of this opportunity.
Applicants may provide required information through the partnership website, including detailed information about the need for the project, its goals, plan of action and a budget. The proposal must be accompanied by supportive budget documentation. Should the proposal be approved, an agreement which provides clarification or more information about the project may be requested. The Arc can help applicants complete the process. For more information on the application process, see the partnership FAQs.
While most microgrants will range from $100 to $1,000, larger amounts up to $2,000 may be considered.
For more information on the Minnesota Microgrant Partnership, contact Wendy Gerlach at 651-604-8070 or contact Susan Sochacki at 651-604-8056.
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2017-2018 Special Education Parent Survey
Each spring MDE’s Special
Education Division invites parents of students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) to complete a parent
survey. Through the survey, parents have an opportunity to share feedback on
their student’s IEP, the IEP process, teachers and administrators. MDE
shares a summary of parent responses with the U.S. Department of Education
(USDOE) as part of the State Performance Plan/Annual Performance Report (SPP/APR) and with
the general public through the data district profiles. In addition, parents look forward to their invitation to the parent survey as
it is their chance to share the celebrations and challenges they have
experienced over the school year.
Because many parents look forward to receiving the survey
and because the results are used as part of Minnesota’s annual report, the
parent survey is an important feature of MDE’s reporting to both USDOE and
our stakeholders. But the survey cannot be successful without your assistance. MDE relies upon special
education directors to provide contact information for the sampled families
(i.e., mailing address and email and phone numbers, when available).
At this point, you do not need to do anything. If your
district is selected as part of the sample for the 2017-2018 survey, we will
contact you in February with further information, including a timeline for the
survey process. If you do not hear from us by March 1, 2017, your district was not
part of the sample for the 2017-2018 survey.
For
more information, contact
Kirsten Rewey at 651-582-8638.
Care and Treatment Survey Coming Soon
This
is a notice that MDE's Special Education Division will be sending out a brief
survey to special education directors and designated district care and
treatment contacts within the next few weeks. The survey will help us determine
topic preferences for a care and treatment symposium and instructional webinar(s).
When the survey is sent to you, please ensure that it is completed in the amount
of time indicated in the survey instructions. We want to provide timely and
relevant information, so your input will be greatly appreciated. If you have
questions, please contact Lochlan Stuart at 651-582-8348.
School District Documentation of Start and End Times for Health-Related
Services Required
The
Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) has announced that effective February 1, 2018,
school districts will be required to document start and end times for each IEP or Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP)
health-related service covered under Medical Assistance (MA), including
MA-covered initial evaluations, reevaluations and assessments. The school
district must have this information readily available if Minnesota Health Care
Programs (MHCP) or the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requests
it. This documentation is necessary to accurately reflect the actual amount of
face-to-face time the service provider spends with the child. More information
is available from the DHS website.
For more information, contact Jenny
Roth (DHS) at 651-431-2622.
Visual
Communication and Sign Language Checklist (VCSL) Training
First
published in 2013, the Visual Communication and Sign Language Checklist (VCSL) was created to assess and monitor the development
of expressive American Sign Language (ASL) in infants, toddlers and
preschoolers (0-5) who are deaf or hard of hearing. Many teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing (TDHH) have been using this tool already. With normative information developed through
observations of the language development of a national sample of deaf children
from signing families, the VCSL is the first assessment tool of its kind. It is considered a valuable tool to assist
families and professionals in program planning, development of IFSPs and IEPs and reporting young children’s language developmental outcomes to MDE.
Laurene Simms, Ph.D., Gallaudet University; Sharon Baker, Ed. D., University of Tulsa; and Diane Clark, Ph.D., Gallaudet University are the authors of the VCSL. See their article on the VCSL from Sign Language Studies and more information on the Gallaudet University website. On
November 2, 2017, Dr. Simms presented
a one-day training on the use and scoring of the VCSL to a select group of
current educators from around the state, deaf mentors and University of Minnesota TDHH candidates at the Collaborative Experience Conference. Educators who received the training will be
sharing information back in their school districts and regions. In addition, the Minnesota Low Incidence Projects
has purchased a copy of the VCSL manual and informational materials for each regional Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) team and the Minnesota
Regional Library for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
For more information, contact Mary Cashman-Bakken.
IEPs for Learners who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing
The Commission of Deaf, DeafBlind & Hard of Hearing
Minnesotans (MNCDHH) along with a team of teachers and parents have developed the
document, "Developing a Language and Communication Focused IEP: A Discussion
Guide." The purpose of this guide is to help
parents and teachers of students who are deaf or hard of hearing to understand
the power of writing a communication and language focused IEP. The guide includes a list of guiding questions and evidence-based
resources to meet the legal mandates of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 and Title II. View the discussion guide on the MNCDHH website.
In addition to the written discussion guide, MNCDHH
partnered with the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) to develop a series of webinars that will help parents understand the contents
of the guide. View the parent-friendly webinar series on the MNCDHH website.
MNCDHH and MDE would like teachers to refer to the guide and use it in
their practice. Starting January 2018, a
weekly series of mini-lessons for teachers will be sent out on the Deaf/Hard
of Hearing listserv hosted by MDE. The
lessons will include a short clip from the parent webinar series with a list of
the discussion prompts from the discussion guide. The goal of the mini-lesson series is that
teachers and parents alike will have access to information that will inform
their practice with students who are deaf/hard of hearing.
Please encourage your teachers of students who are deaf/hard
of hearing to take a few minutes out of their week to review the
mini-lessons. Teacher licensure renewal
clock hours will be offered upon completion of a final evaluation.
For details, contact Anna
Paulson at MNCDHH.
State Rehabilitation Council for the Blind Opportunities
The State Rehabilitation Council for the Blind (SRC-B) is seeking new members. SRC-B is looking for more applications from potential members to represent parents, industry and advocacy organizations. The SRC-B gives advice and recommendations to the State Services for the Blind (SSB) program about the services they offer, their priorities and the products they make available through our Communication Center. Mandated by both state and federal law, the SRC-B meets at least six times a year in St. Paul. Its members are appointed by the governor to a three-year term. The council must have a majority of members who are blind or visually impaired and not employed by SSB.
Please share this information with families or others
who may be interested in serving on the SRC-B. For more information about the
Council vacancies please visit the SRC-B website or you may contact Carol
Pankow at 651-539-2272.
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State Board of School Administrators News
Executive Director: Dr. Tony Kinkel
Kinkel Named School Administrators Board Director
As Executive Director of Minnesota’s
Board for School Administrators, Dr. Anthony G. (Tony) Kinkel brings a unique blend of
teaching, administrative, policy making and leadership experience back to
Minnesota. A native of Park Rapids, Minnesota, Dr. Kinkel is a graduate of the University
of Minnesota – Duluth and the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where he
received his Ed.D. He brings 32 years of experience to the job.
Elected at age 24 to the Minnesota
House of Representatives, Dr. Kinkel served from 1986 to 1998 where he was appointed
by the Speaker of the House to chair the Higher Education Finance Division and
was elected by his peers to serve on Education Commission of the States, a
national organization of state policy makers who hold educational leadership
positions in their respective states. From
1999 to 2002, Dr. Kinkel served in the Minnesota State Senate where he served as
Vice-Chair of the Senate Higher Education Finance Division. In addition to serving in the state senate,
Dr. Kinkel worked as the Dean of General Education at Northwest Technical
College in Minnesota, one of the state’s largest technical colleges with five
separate campuses. Prior to being an
academic dean, Kinkel taught Political Science at Central Lakes Community
College in Brainerd, Minnesota and was a high school social studies teacher
and assistant basketball coach at Sandstone, Minnesota where he was named the local
Farmers Union Teacher of the Year in 1985.
Leaving the legislature in 2002, Dr. Kinkel was chosen in a
nationwide search to lead Maryland’s community colleges as state director for
the Maryland Association of Community Colleges. While in Maryland, Kinkel led 16 independent community
colleges, representing them before the Governor, the Maryland Higher Education
Commission and the Maryland General Assembly.
In 2004, Dr. Kinkel was chosen by the University of Arkansas
Board of Trustees to serve as Chancellor of the University of Arkansas
Community College at Batesville (UACCB) located in rural, north-central Arkansas. While at Arkansas, UACCB increased its
academic rigor to the 90th percentile as measured
by the Community
College Student Survey of Engagement, 2006.
In
2007, Kinkel was chosen to lead Colorado’s second largest community college, Pikes
Peak Community College, a college consisting of four campuses with 14,000
students and over 1,000 full and part-time employees. In 2008, Dr. Kinkel was named President of the Year by the Colorado
Community College Student Association. Kinkel also received the Innovator of the Year Award from the
University of Colorado at Colorado Springs for becoming the first community
college in the nation to partner with a charter school to build a joint
facility in 2008.
Selected
to lead Kansas’ largest technical in 2010, Kinkel and his colleagues at Wichita
Area Technical College (WATC) managed and operated the National Center for Aviation
Training (NCAT). NCAT was selected by
the National Association of Manufacturing to create and develop national
standards in aviation curriculum. In
recognition of WATC’s commitment to its employees, the Wichita Business Journal named WATC as one of the “Top Six Places
to Work” in 2014.
Most
recently, Kinkel led Motlow State Community College to becoming the fastest-growing
college in the state of Tennessee for three consecutive years. With the help of a great team, Motlow State
became the number one performing community college in the state as identified by
the Tennessee Higher Education Commission Performance Funding Model. Motlow’s retention rates became among the
highest in the college’s history including the highest rate of retention for
Tennessee Promise students.
Dr.
Kinkel and his wife, Melva, have two children, a son Brett, age 30, who lives
in Kansas City and Kellen, age 16, who is a junior in high school. The family
plans to live in Stillwater.
“I am so honored to be coming home to Minnesota, a
state that leads the country in education. We plan to get up every day and do
everything in our power to nurture, to support, to train and to license the
very best educational administrators,” Kinkel said. “After working in five states, I realize more
than ever that it is a very competitive environment for Minnesota students to
become successful in a new economy focused on artificial intelligence and
automation. Having the best educational leaders will give our state, and our
children, the competitive edge they need to secure good jobs.”
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